First Show of 2013 at Galleria Dante Joseph Guarniere - Galleria Dante
January 10, 2013

Join Galeria Dante in their first show of the 2013 season with the exhibit opening of Jesse Reno and Ignacio Guerrero.

The cocktail party opening will be on Friday, January 11, from 6:00 until 10:00 pm, in conjunction with the South Side Shuffle.

Jesse Reno

A Self taught,  mixed media painter. He has been drawing since age 5, exhibiting since 2001 and has exhibited extensively in USA, Canada, Europe. This is his 4th year exhibiting in Puerto Vallarta.

In his paintings, Portland-based artist Jesse Reno, the shamanic beings struggle to find their place in a world simultaneously on the verge of expanding and collapsing. Totem animals and Native American figures reverberate memories of people who once lived as one with nature.

Marked by symbols, these figures seek their dreams in the growth of trees and the passing of spirits. On a quest to find their true selves, they collect feathers and relics left by past encounters and past lives. They learn to transcend the boundaries of the rational world evolving into a collage of what they have become and encountered.

Jesse's works are best described as "A Primitive Abstract Narrative." A process without pre-conceived plans just a thought and feeling following one after the other to become an idea... changing directions as forms emerge to find an idea free from judgment, something true in and of itself. From this a world of personal myth, iconography, symbols and beings are created. Reno presents us with a journey leading inward to ultimately expand outward.

"If you have moved wisely, your dreams will still grow when you are gone. My work acts for no reason other than to convey an inner struggle for expression - simple and direct. Open for interpretation. Always with purpose. Words mis-spelled, left out - just like real thinking, the disconnected string of thoughts that guides the day. This is my expression."

Ignacio Guerrero

"Stop scratching the walls!" is the phrase that his mother scolded him most consistently with in his childhood and of which he still remembers fondly. Even though he knew he would be punished, he continued to paint on the walls.

Born on December 4, 1963, in Guadalajara, he is essentially a self-taught artist. He displayed an interest in drawing and painting from childhood.

After obtaining a degree in graphic design at the University of Guadalajara, he achieved the post of art director for several prestigious advertising agencies in the city, as well as illustrating for numerous magazines and newspapers. Nevertheless, he subsequently left the world of advertising to devote himself to painting; something that he feels gives him total freedom of expression.

His work, which is surrealist in quality, has been exhibited more than 60 times in Mexico and abroad, in places as distant as Portugal, Italy, Australia and New York. And has to his credit many awards and special recognitions.

In 2009 and 2011, his work was selected by the National Committee of the international Biennale of contemporary art in Florence, Italy.

"Paint until you drop," says Ignacio, "or until there is nothing more to say to the canvas."

The fun surreal dream-world of Ignacio Guerrero, conjures up hiding places along the road to the impossible; the flight of a bird, cages, horses galloping with energy, mermaids, men and women in full, quasi-Kafkaesque, metamorphosis show familiar elements in this strange world produced from the depths of his acrylic and oil embedded brushes which create the poetry of his paintings.

Everything that is observed is a game, a wonderful set of tones and textures.

Motivated by fantastic muses, his pictorial work celebrates the life and obliges us to look at something that has not stopped being here, but we often forget: the harmony of nature.

Galleria Dante is located in Old Town Vallarta at #269 Basilio Badillo, email is galleriadante@gmail.com.

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